


Ashes (The First Act of War)

by Kount_Xero



Series: The Sorceress War [4]
Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: Action, Brea Willings, Casus belli, Crisis, First act of war, Gen, Major Character Injury, Permanent Injury, Survival, crisis management
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-06-29 04:53:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 13,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19822954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kount_Xero/pseuds/Kount_Xero
Summary: Two years after the events of "The Few Remaining Strands," an ordinary day in Ocean Garden turns into a struggle for survival after a missile attack cripples the structure. Stranded and helpless, there is nothing left for the survivors but to try and find their way as their home crumbles around them.





	1. Prologue (Veterans)

Whispers in the dark.

“Selphie..?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you ever think about your parents?”

“My birth parents? No. Heh...”

“What?”

“Zell. He used to call them births.”

“Births? Just births?”

“It was this big discussion one day, you weren’t there. Irvine found Zell and me collecting those stones we thought were shells on the beach. He just came and struck up a discussion about our birth parents. Why they might have left us, why they might not have wanted us.”

“And?”

“Zell, trying to come up with a clever curse but too polite to actually swear, just went, _they’re birth parents! That’s all they are! They are births! They’re births, that’s what they are!”_

“That’s just like him.”

“What can I say, he was a barrel of laughs then, too.”

“The strangest thing... but that doesn’t answer my question.”

“Sometimes, darling. Just sometimes. And that’s just it. Just sometimes, it almost feels like I’m on that beach, waiting for Zell to show up so I don’t have to cry about why my parents never wanted me.”

“Selphie...”

“I miss him, Squall.”

“Two years isn’t enough to forget.”

“It’s enough to move on. Isn’t that what we’ve done..? Moved on?”

“...doesn’t mean we should have devoted our entire lives to his death.”

“I just feel guilty... ya know?”

“About what?”

“I feel guilty that I enjoy things that he would, things that we used to enjoy together. I feel guilty for doing them without him.”

“Knowing Zell, I think he would have hated the idea of you abandoning those things.”

“I don’t think we can know that.”

“It was just an inference.”

“It’s just... it hurts so much, Squall. Two years gone, and it still hurts like it hurt the first day, the first week...”

“Let it.”

“What?”

“Let it hurt. I’m here.”

“Shouldn’t you be here to spare me the pain?”

“No. I’m here to share it.”

A kiss, in the dark, and soft words that follow.


	2. Day

Squall settled into his chair and leaned back. He activated the flat screen he had had installed onto the wall and went over the sixteen channels that were available until he found the GNN. The first frame was a podium, atop which Rinoa, now in her black pinstripe suit, was standing. Microphone stands crowded the space in front of her. Behind her, also wearing a suit, but retaining his cowboy hat, was Irvine.

Squall couldn’t deny that Irvine being declared her official Knight hadn’t hurt at all, despite everything.

Rinoa was speaking.

“ _...and I assure you that further changes will come to pass, hopefully all for the better. Two years is a very short time and four years is barely enough for any one person to make a change, but I do not think I have given anyone a reason to doubt my commitment to reform. With that said, I can answer some questions.”_

Squall saw the date and time at the upper right corner of the screen and remembered a phone call, two years ago.

* * *

“Hello?”

_“Ms. President. Congratulations.”_

“Why, thank you, General, you are too kind.”

_“I see that you’ve picked up some rhetoric.”_

“It’s how I am supposed to talk.”

_“I guess... how does it feel?”_

“Right now? It feels like I ought to make a law. It should be every little girl’s dream to surpass their father’s ambitions.”

_“This is actually an official call as well, however. Congratulations are in order, sure, but besides that, I have something to tell you.”_

“Go ahead.”

_“Ocean Garden will not support you, nor will we lend SeeD to any effort of war effort your government may want to undertake.”_

“I thought SeeD was for hire.”

_“Ocean Garden is a neutral organization, Rinoa, and I will not politicize the sum of my efforts here just because you feel like you need more knights in your games.”_

“To be neutral, you should also refuse to supply any anti-governmental factions with SeeD.”

_“I will supply SeeD to any non-governmental, unaffiliated party that pays the price. This is the same policy that applies to Esthar and to the semi-autonomous Dollet Dukedom. This is the same policy that was in place when we first came to Timber. I will not change it, I will not bend it, I will not move a single comma in the said clause. This isn’t a threat, nor is it saber-rattling on my part. I’m just telling you how it’s going to be.”_

“Thanks, but Dollet Dukedom itself requested help in that incident, so that policy-“

_“Dollet Dukedom asked it to defend itself against a hostile invader, which was your father’s government. That’s well within the neutrality clause.”_

“As you like. I understand what you’re trying to say, and I don’t blame you for it. But if such a time should come-“

_“Different circumstances, Rin. Different measures.”_

“One last thing... what about Galbadian SeeD candidates?”

_“What about them?”_

“Galbadia Garden is already a governmental organization.”

_“As such, I am only admitting Galbadian candidates that have no political affiliations whatsoever. Even those will have their backgrounds double-checked and will have to go through psych-testing. Anyone else is not going to be admitted.”_

“That’s your bottom line?”

_“My bottom line is, Rin, I don’t trust you.”_

_Brief silence on the other end._

“I understand.”

_“So, congratulations again, Ms. President.”_

_Squall hung up and that was the last time they spoke._

* * *

Squall took a sip of his coffee and then changed the channel. He happened upon a documentary about the Trabia Garden aid efforts. The place had been renovated and had been open for about a year now, accepting Estharian students and the odd Galbadian. Squall knew that about half of their own total recruits came from Trabia, the new Galbadian admissions policy had put paid to that.

He remembered his lunch appointment with Selphie. She had also suggested that if they could squeeze it in, she did feel very much like a quickie today. Squall half-smiled. With not-so-quiet nights in following the not-so-quiet nights out, he wasn’t sure if they were limitless or not.

The screen showed the headstones in the Trabian graveyard, the entrance of which was made entirely from the missiles that hadn’t detonated.

* * *

_“They all stare.” Selphie said as she worked her way through her sandwich, “I can feel them looking at me.”_

_“Who’s looking at you?” Squall asked._

_“The Trabians. They give me these glances as they pass me by... like they’re saying something.”_

_“Saying what?”_

_“That I failed. That they’ll succeed there. That they’ll be better than me. They won’t let their friends down, they won’t sell their souls to SeeD...”_

_“...you didn’t sell your soul to SeeD.”_

_“You don’t understand.”_

_Selphie took the split second shift in Squall’s expression to hastily explain._

_“It’s not your fault. You just can’t. You’ve always been in Balamb Garden. Your natural path was always to be a SeeD. It’s not the same with other Gardens. In Trabia, you either go on to become a SeeD after completing equivalent classes, or you move onto being an instructor, and work to help others achieve the goal you either gave up or couldn’t measure up to.”_

_“How could they be better?” Squall took her hand into his, “You are a veteran. They didn’t fight the war. They don’t know anything.”_

_Squall felt her hand tense up._

_“What?”_

_“Just like Zell... you’re saying what he said...”_

_“No. He meant nobody. I mean your Trabians. They weren’t there when we went toe-to-toe with Matron. They didn’t see us fail, they didn’t see us thrown into the D-District Prison. They didn’t watch us move through the entire damn structure to fight our way out. They don’t understand that it could have been Balamb Garden that was hit first, if not for Matron’s lingering affection for the place.”_

_“Squall, I...”_

_“You couldn’tve done better. I wish, Selphie - I wish that Trabia hadn’t been the one to pay the price. But that doesn’t give anyone any right to judge you.”_

_A little tear running down her cheek gave him the impression that he had either said the absolutely right or the absolutely wrong thing. There was only one way to be sure._

_“So, what do you say?” Squall asked._

_“I think I say, I love you.”_

_“I think I say it back.”_

* * *

Repeating to himself for Hyne knew which time that he desperately needed a secretary, he checked his schedule and instantly decided he couldn’t be bothered with it right this second. Instead, he focused on dividing the tasks he had to perform by the time he had for lunch.

In moments like these, Squall wondered if this was what Cid had preferred to spend his time doing. Of course, Cid had never been a soldier, had never been a SeeD, and being an instrument of violence had never been drilled into him. Squall, despite the peace he had found in governing his home, sometimes longed for something a bit more hands-on.

Squall breezed through the rest of his pre-lunch schedule of administrative duties. It was mostly micromanagement slates requiring his approval for this, that, or the other, and the odd petition from cadets who wanted smoking in their dorm rooms allowed. That particular one, he set aside. The clock slowly drained the minutes and the minutes took the hours, until, mercifully, the time of day reached high noon. With far more relief than he knew was appropriate, Squall pushed his chair away from his desk, got his jacket and walked out of his office. The brief walk to the elevator had never felt so short. He got in and went down.

He got out of the elevator and onto the hustle and bustle of ground level main. Selphie had said she’d wait in the Cafeteria. Their usual table. Squall smiled. He was enjoying himself.

He was enjoying himself so much that he didn’t hear the hissing above; and when he finally heard it, he instantly realized what it was... by then, it was already too late.


	3. Assault

The assault lasted just under a minute.

The missiles flew in a straight path until reaching their target range. Once they did, they changed course and drew a graceful arc higher into the sky above Ocean Garden, before raining down onto the unsuspecting victims below. Some of the missiles blew open their sides and scattered mini-bombs to shower its targets with, while others changed course at the last second and went horizontally in every direction, scattering to find new targets, to get deeper into corridors if they could.

The first explosion, that in the Garden’s comm-tower, was drowned out by the series of high-impact sounds that immediately followed, a moment Squall would later remember as everything being over long before anybody had a chance to fully realize what was happening. Flying debris caught cadets and SeeDs alike off-guard – the explosion scattered not only the pieces of their landing point, but of themselves in the form of hot shrapnel that lacerated whoever they caught. When the higher levels were hit, the Garden’s occupants found little shelter in their rather enclosed space as hard, sharp pieces of plastiglass rained down on them, cutting into whoever couldn’t avoid one of the many shards.

Pieces of the Garden’s structure, chunks of reinforced concrete followed the glass and dove down to the ground level, crushing those that never saw them coming.

In the ensuing chaos, some, cradling the corpses of their loved ones, were trampled in the stampeding mass of absolutely terrified cadets and SeeDs rushing to get out of the ground level main; they were kicked aside and bruised by their urgent steps. As they huddled into corners, looking for protection, holding pieces left of those they had held dear (and looking at the wounds disfiguring their flesh,) they cried and screamed, but nobody heard them in the crescendo of human noise.

One of the missiles actually managed to go into a corridor and went deeper and deeper until exploding right at the entrance of the Infirmary. Before they could process the first explosions outside, the nurses, Dr. Kodowaki herself and the attending staff died in a fiery inferno of super-heated air and sharpnel.

A missile ended square at the entrance of the Cafeteria, and the force of the explosion threw Squall off his feet while simultaneously showering the Cafeteria with debris. He collided with the glass railing and crashed right through it, carrying shards with him into the small pond of water between walkways. The water enveloped him and his limbs, now loose and free, let him sink.

His perception almost came to a standstill, and the moment it slowed down, everything seemed to stop. In that split-second halt, floating free, Squall could think one thought.

_What the hell’s happening..?_

Squall turned, his perception slowly picking up the slack, and kicked the ground. His head rose up above the water and he breathed. He expected to hear the sounds above the water.

There was a ringing in his ear, a white-noise constant stretching into eternity and there was no other sound.


	4. Silence

Squall grabbed hold of the edge of the walkway and pulled himself up. His left hand ground into glass and he clenched his teeth as he pulled his knees up. Once he was on the ground, he stood up. His knees buckled and he fell to his side, felt the cold stone smash against his shoulder. He steadied himself and first got onto his knees, and then stood. He balanced himself on an opening stance. Standing up brought his body to a halt. He didn’t move, had no will to. His mind was a garbled mess of thoughts rapid-firing and tangling up in an incoherent, screaming knot. Everything seemed to be at a distance, at a pace that was quite different than his own. He couldn’t comprehend, he couldn’t understand.

He couldn’t hear anything. There was only the silence.

His eyes were seeing, but the images he caught didn’t align, didn’t add up to anything. Holes where there should be walls, cracks across once-smooth surfaces. Fractures and blank spots across the rising walls. The wreck left of the directory. Damage running down the exterior of the elevator shaft. The walkway to the Training Center, completely destroyed – pieces of it, floating in the shallower ponds broken into the middle.

Rubble covering the area. Broken benches. Shards of glass. Cadets and SeeDs everywhere, in full uniform, mouths moving, shaping words he couldn’t hear. Bodies on the ground, sprawled across the broken landscape, with the lucky ones lying on the laps or in the arms of those that loved them. The unlucky ones, alone, either lying dead or unconscious, or holding their wounds in a corner they had found.

Around him, Ocean Garden had been broken.

Something warm was running down his face. Squall touched it, and immediately winced at the stabbing pain. Blood on his fingers. A cut on his forehead, deep, but not deep enough that it required immediate attention. He took a moment to dig shards of glass from his palm, and hoped that he could hear something soon.

The brief interlude of pain brought him back. He felt as if a full-body bind had just been released. One thought came through loud and clear: he needed to move. So he did - he took a shaky step forward. Walking seemed too difficult a concept, so instead, he focused on getting one foot in front of the other. Left. Left. Left right left.

Squall spotted a SeeD nearby, a girl, hugging her knees and staring off into the distance with dead, unfocused eyes looking through strands of her red hair. He shifted his direction towards her, steadied himself and started to wobble his way along. When he got to her side, he crouched, too afraid to go down on one knee. With gentle fingers, he untied her tie and pulled it off of her neck. He tied it around his hand, secured the knot. She didn't react. He tapped her on her shoulder.

The reaction was anything but what he expected. The girl threw a wild punch that connected with his cheek. Continuing to throw kicks and punches, she backed away from him. Squall tried to shake the impact off, and that was when the girl snapped to. Her eyes grew wide and she scrambled towards him, mouthing the word, “sorry,” constantly. Squall pointed at his ear, and then, remembering that he could still speak, told her that he couldn’t hear anything.

He stood once more, this time steadier, and the girl stood with him. Squall asked her to spell out her name. B-R-E-A. Congratulations, he told her, you are my new aide. Help me. We have to do a perimeter check, see what happened.

Squall took Brea’s arm and dragged her along. Something in him had shut down and all that was left was his training, which told him to do a damage assessment. The damage, far as he could see through their walk around the ring, was the same, as if one section had been attacked, and the result had been copied and pasted onto the other sections.

The Infirmary, he saw, was completely blocked off – the entrance had collapsed. The dormitories were fine, and he made note to use it as a makeshift infirmary if they had the means to care for the wounded.

The entrance of the Cafeteria had been replaced with a block of fractured stone.

A thought eroded all others. Selphie.

For a moment, Squall was beset on all sides by the worst of his thoughts. Visions of Selphie, always dead and dead by different means, flashed through his mind, filling him slowly with fear.

_Snap out of it._

Squall pushed the thought away, retreated into the SeeD and continued to walk with Brea’s help.

When he and Brea returned to their starting position, he outlined a plan of action.

He told Brea to see if she could find two categories of people: unwounded or functional cadets, SeeD and field medics. Brea nodded and hurried away, left him standing with no will to move.

The ringing in his ear was starting to lessen. Not enough to hear, but not so oppressive now.

* * *

When Brea returned with very small group in tow, Squall’s hearing was still recovering. She saluted him and said:

“These are the field medics, sir.”

He could hear her as if she was very distant, but he could hear. That was good. There were five field medics in total. Not a lot to go on, but leagues above nothing.

“Senior level?”

One of them, a cadet, rose his hand.

“You’re the field commander of Squad A. Also, you’ve just made SeeD. Your job is to take care of the wounded in ground level main.” Squall said, “Junior level?”

Two.

“One of you is with him, the other one will be in Squad B. Finally, sophomore?”

Two.

“One of you will go with him, the other will be in Squad B. Now, Brea, the others?”

Squall counted sixteen in total, four SeeDs, twelve cadets.

“Eight of you,” Squall said, “Are in Squad C. Your job is to clear a way to the Infirmary, we need the supplies there. The other eight is designated Squad D, who will clear a way into the Cafeteria. Squad B is with Squad D. Does everybody understand their assignments?”

Nods all around.

“Good. Go.”

The soldiers scrambled, leaving Brea and Squall.

“And us, sir?” Brea asked.

“You’re coming with me. We’re going to the communications center.”

“Do you think it’s still intact, sir?”

“One way to find out. You coming?”

“Yes, sir!” 

* * *

Brea followed Squall into the elevator shaft. They pried the doors open together. Upon seeing the elevator was on the ground level, Squall muttered a prayer of gratitude to Hyne. They entered the elevator. Squall pressed the button for the navigation level. Nothing happened. He tapped on the button a few times. Nothing.

“Power loss...” he said, “We’ll go through the shaft, then. Come on, Brea, you’re up.” 

* * *

Squall lifted Brea up and she opened the hatch. She crawled up. Squall unzipped his jacket for more freedom of movement. He jumped to grab the hatch, and pulled himself up. They both looked up. The shaft, going up to the administrative level, had a detour three levels down from that, which led to the communications center. There was a ladder, embedded into the wall and on the side of the elevator doors. Squall started first. He got up a few steps when he noticed that Brea wasn’t following.

“Brea?” he asked.

“Y-yes, sir?” she responded, her voice quivering.

“Are you coming?”

“Y-yes, sir!”

“Something the matter?”

“I...”

“Out with it!” Squall snapped.

“I don’t like heights, sir.”

“You’re a SeeD. Get over it.”

Brea latched onto the bars and pulled herself up. Squall wiped the blood off of his face. Damn thing was bleeding into his eye.

He could feel a headache starting to claw up to the top of his skull.

* * *

They ascended quietly. Brea spent the better portion of the climb reminding herself that she wouldn’t think twice if the ladder was ten steps up, so she shouldn’t think twice now that they were two floors up. There wasn’t this invisible variable that got added the higher it got, the mechanics were the same. Of course, the mechanics of falling also remained the same, b

_Stop it._

She clenched her teeth and followed the General. 

* * *

When they managed to get to the third floor, the ladder shifted diagonally, with the bars remaining straight but moving sideways. Squall shifted through them with ease. It took his annoyed shouting to get Brea to do the same. She hesitantly and slowly moved through the sections, ensuring that she had at least three limbs secured to bars before moving her body at all. Squall took the time to ascend to the doors’ level and maneuver himself onto the narrow, but still acceptably wide ledge in front of the doors. Brea followed suit.

“Now,” Squall said, wiping the blood off of his forehead, noting that there was less of it now, “We need to get these open.”

“Sir, you’re bleeding...”

“I’ll live. What’s your specialty?”

“Sir?”

“Your specialty, what are you?”

Squall observed the door. Heavy doors, adamantine-alloy, their mechanical systems tied to circuits. The elevator doors actually clicked a circuit complete when they slid into place, which tied into receptor circuits on the sides of the frame. The door frames held the wiring necessary for two circuits to become one through the act of one becoming active.

Squall knew they couldn’t pry the doors open, not really – the ledge wasn’t wide enough for them. He decided that the only way to do so was to turn the doors’ own circuitry against itself. Loop the current. Which would of course only work if they still had power, but he really didn’t want to consider a scenario where they didn’t.

“Answer me, Brea. Swordfighter, field mage, what?”

“Sharpshooter, sir.”

“Glad to see that a sharpshooter will be guarding my back.”

“Your back, sir?”

“You’re my aide. You’re doing a fine job so far. If you keep it up, your position will be permanent... when we see this through.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, do me a favor, there’s a circuit box in embedded into the door frame. Do you see it?”

Brea turned and inched her way to the edge. She reached out and felt her way around. The frame itself was metal, but there was a thin, almost unnoticeable line where metal ended and masonry began.

“I think I found it.” Brea said.

“It opens outward, so find the lock and open it.”

Brea felt around and came across a thick knob with an elevated center. Small, but there. She flipped it and heard the lock disengage with a thin clack. She opened the hatch.

“Good,” Squall said as he pulled a mess of cables outward. Thank Hyne for every cable having a small tag describing what it did, “Reach in, you’ll touch a bunch of cables. Pull them out, all of them.”

Blue for positive, red for negative charges. Got it.

Fuck, his head was aching.

“Got them, sir.”

“Get the blue and red ones. Strip the plastic. Carefully.”

Brea, taking great care to bite as shallowly as possible, bit into the plastic, just enough to make a dent. Then she peeled the covering back and exposed the wires. Squall instructed Brea to hold out red with her left hand, and blue with her right. On his command, she completed the circuit and electricity crackled. With a heavy hiss, the elevator doors behind them opened and they took a few steps in to be safe. Brea took a deep breath. Squall grinned.

The communications center was at the end of an elongated hallway. They saw that one of the doors leading to it was open, and it was slowly moving towards the middle of the threshold to close, stopping, and then opening again. Something on the ground, something round was shifting a bit every time the door hit it and stopped.

When they got close, Squall simply felt nausea add to the headache. He was tired. He hadn’t done anything, and he was tired.

Brea, by his side, gasped and Squall could barely catch her before her knees buckled. He steadied her, gave her the usual assurances, it’s okay, it’s fine, it’ll be alright, and didn’t believe one word of it – not with a severed head keeping the door open, not with a severed head that had a piece of shrapnel where it’s right eye should be.

Squall stepped over the head and Brea followed.

The communications center had been destroyed. The monitors lining both walls had been devastated by pieces of sharp metal – the switchboards were a mess of dangling cables. The records compiler by the smashed window was just a short stack of tapes, paper and wires. The rest was a pile of corpses, dead where they had been sitting, bodies mangled with the impact, supporting pieces of metal and glass.

Where there once was an endless array of sounds and words was now silence.

“Fuck!” Squall could feel the nausea asserting itself, little by little, “No contact with anyone. Fuck...” he ran a hand through his hair, “Ffuck...” he cracked up. Before the eyes of a very distressed Brea, he started to laugh, until he choked on it. “Hyne... Motherfucker’s good.”

“G...general...”

Squall wasn’t sure if he had imagined it, but then, another sound, accompanied by the distinctive hiss of radio static accompanied it.

_“Xu? Is everything alright down there? Talk to me!"_

Squall leapt towards the window and found Xu in a corner between the record compiler’s remains and one of the consoles. She held a small, portable transceiver in one hand, and with the other, gently pressed against a piece of jagged metal in between her ribs.

A red line crossed her left eye.

“I... passed out for a minute there... hey there, General...”

“Xu, what the...” Squall got down to one knee, “Can you move?”

“N-no... not in this condition.”

“ _What the hell’s going on down there?”_

Squall took the trasnciever.

“Nida? Is that you?”

_“General?”_

“Yeah... it’s me.”

“ _Thank fuck... General, you need to come up here. We have a problem, we have a massive fucking problem.”_

“What is it?”

_“I can’t tell you. Have to see for yourself.”_

“Anybody else up there with you? The co-pilot, what’s his name...”

_“Jan? He’s dead.”_

“Fuck... okay. I’m coming up. General Leonhart out.”

_“My regards, sir.”_

Squall returned the piece to Xu.

“It’s gonna be alright.” He told her, “We’re gonna get help.”

“I’m good to... wait.” Xu said, "Walk in the park..."

Squall was sure that he would throw up any second.

“This is Brea. Brea, meet Lieutenant General Xu.”

“Pleasure, sir.” Brea said.

“She’s my new aide.” Squall said. He turned to Brea, “New assignment, soldier. Go down to ground level main, take one of the junior level medics and get him up here. Go. Now.”

“Yes, sir!”

Brea saluted them and ran out, only happy to leave the small mass coffin.

“What’s... going on... Squall?”

“I don’t know.” Squall said, rubbing his temples, “But they’re good, Xu. They’re very fucking good.”

“Formidable...”

“That’s the word. Formidable.”

Silence.

“I need to go.” He said.

“Go.”

“Will you be alright?”

“I’ll... hold out.”

Squall left the communications center wondering if he had made the right choice, but his churning stomach and dry mouth put paid to any thought deeper than where he needed to go and that they had a massive fucking problem.

He wondered if they had reached the cafeteria yet.


	5. Safe

Her consciousness came in waves, each one more sophisticated than the last, but ultimately, her waking thoughts were simple. Object, connotation. Stone, cold. Dust, choking. Sounds, too many. Hands, shaking. On her shoulder, insistent.

“Selphie... hey!”

Voice, familiar.

“Hey, little messenger girl, wake up! Don’t leave me hanging!”

Recognition, friend. Recongition, foe. Recognition, neither.

“Come on!”

Seifer. Asshole.

“Hey, there you go, c’mon, hey, look at me.”

Hands on her cheeks, forcing her to look at him. His face, concerned, his eyes, observant. Shaking her head, gently, trying to see if she responded to his presence.

“You see me?”

“Stop shaking me, Seifer, you’re making me nauseous.”

“Oh... sorry.”

The hands retreated. Her head was a Bite Bugs’ nest, buzzing and aching. The pounding on her temples told her that she had hit her head. The absence of worry on Seifer’s part told her that she either had no visible injuries or that she was utterly fucked.

Instead of focusing on herself, Selphie tried to take in the scene, her mind still reeling in from the rude awakening. Most of the tables had been upturned, the chairs laid scattered between them. There were a few cadets and SeeDs simply sitting at their tables, plates full but forgotten, quietly staring off into nothing.

Selphie tried to remember. Digging into her memory replayed her last thought, that Squall was late again. Then... nothing. Just Seifer stirring her awake. And there he still was, crouched next to her, in his cadet uniform, looking at her with that weird, concerned expression on his face.

Selphie realized that she had never seen him worried before.

“What happened?” she asked as she pinched the bridge of her nose as hard as she could, “What the fuck happened?”

“Something blew up the entrance.” Seifer said, “The cadets in the back say it was a missile.”

Selphie felt a cold chill run down her spine. She shook it off.

“A missile blowing up the entrance would kill half of us, dumbasses.” Selphie said, and looking on, she saw a bunch of Trabians. _Figures._

“Yeah.”

“Nobody’s dead... or, if I’m seeing this right, hurt.” She touched her forehead, it stung, but there was no blood.

“So maybe, whatever it was, it went above the entrance, hell, I don’t fucking know. All I know is that we’re trapped there. But we’re safe, at least for the time being.”

Selphie tried to see through the pain, and what she saw was that the face she had come to hate so much seemed concerned for her, and attuned to the environment around it. She was surprised, but ultimately, this wasn’t the time to dwell on the finer qualities of Seifer Almasy.

“So what got me?” Selphie asked.

“A fist-sized chunk of the wall. You were out for maybe a minute.”

“Help me up.”

Seifer took hold of Selphie’s arm and supported her weight as she stood up. She stood there, wobbling, her head spinning, but kept herself on her feet. With Seifer supporting her, she surveyed the scene. Nothing too major – the dessert stand now cradled a mess of pies that had glass shards in them, a few lights had gone out, but nothing else.

“Anyone hurt?” she croaked, just to be on the safe side. She cleared her throat and repeated the question. No answer came. Good.

“Nobody." Seifer said, "We even have food, so we can last a while.”

“A while? Seifer, I’m not...” sudden dizzy spell cut her short as she concentrated on just keeping her footing, “I’m not staying here if I can help it.”

“Well, you’re supposed to be the badass, veteran field mage, any solutions there?”

“The baddest. Let’s see the exit first.” 

* * *

The entrance to the cafeteria was a dark cave-in, cutting abruptly five steps in and ending with a wall of masonry. Four cadets and a SeeD were trying to navigate through the pile - separate what could safely be removed and put aside and what was tied to a whole array of different pieces. Selphie pulled herself free of Seifer’s arm and stumbled forward.

Five steps. A particularly boring day had led her once to measure how many steps it was from the entrance to the cafeteria itself, and the number was ten. So it had gone off, whatever it was, halfway. Selphie looked to the upper corners of the entrance, and saw small gaps, gaps that had nothing whatsoever to do with the clutter underneath them. The ceiling, far as she could see, wasn’t going to come down if they shifted one wedge too many.

“There’s a whole lot of shit between here and there.” She said, “Hm. Seifer?”

“Yeah?”

“Are there any donuts left?”

“Donuts?”

“I’m hungry. Get me some donuts, will ya?”

“Do I have to salute you, too?” Seifer asked.

“If it’ll make you feel better.”

Seifer disappeared into the cafeteria. Selphie found the five diggers were looking at her with their eyebrows raised. She shrugged it off and got closer to them.

“Any of you a mage?” Selphie asked.

“No.” the SeeD said, “We’re an... impromptu squad. I’m the leader.”

“Good. Any of you armed?”

One of the cadets pulled out a handgun.

“Too small.” Selphie said, almost allowing a smile, “We need something bigger.”

“LG?” another cadet said.

“Yeah?”

“Aren’t _you_ a field mage?”

“I’m thinking about what would break through this. LVL4 Thundaga, maybe.”

“Not to brag,” Seifer said, passing her a box of donuts, “But I think I can melt some of this down.”

“Your expertise was fire, right?” Selphie asked.

“Yeah. LVL4, last I checked. Ought to do the job. The hotter they are, the easier they will break. How about we do this together?”

“Youb bfull ob good stubf tofday.”

“Didn’t Matron ever tell you not to talk with your mouth full?”

Selphie grinned through a mouthful of crumbs.

* * *

Selphie and Seifer cleared out the impromptu squad, and Selphie decided to stop after four donuts. A sugar rush wasn’t what she needed. LVL4 spells took concentration and energy, neither of which she had enough to spare.

They stood two steps into the cafeteria and got into position. Seifer held out a hand, focusing.

“Aim low.” Selphie said, “Y’know, just in case anybody’s trying to get in here to save us. Don’t wanna kill them.”

“You’re awfully cheery about this... as usual.” he said.

“Would you rather I moped about it? That’s Squall’s job.”

“I’m sure his performance is outstanding.”

Selphie chuckled.

Seifer grew silent. He slowly began to form the spell. The air around his hand hissed as it heated up, and soon, bright lights, too bright to look into directly, started to dance around his fingers. Selphie covered her face and waited for him to release the energy, and with a habitual whisper, Seifer cast. Selphie didn’t see or hear the LVL4 Firaga, she simply felt the walls and the pile grow hotter and hotter until the radiating heat could be felt from where they were standing.

“Your turn,” he breathed, and Selphie saw beads of sweat running down his face. He wobbled a few steps back, but kept standing.

“Why are you still a cadet?” Selphie asked, “Honestly?”

“Too many classes to go through. The fucking curriculum.” Seifer said, panting, “I just finished this term.”

Selphie concentrated. She clenched her fist and started to focus the energies of a particularly volatile piece of para-magic. The air around her started cackling with random sparks igniting and dissipating around the central point. Selphie felt a tingling sensation start to build up in her clenched fist. She couldn’t even rejoice in the fact that it was working, because her legs were starting to feel the pressure of keeping her body up.

Selphie turned her fist towards the entrance and opened her fingers. The fizzling crack of lightning filled the air and bolts, blindingly bright, shot ahead and tore apart the stones. The lightshow ended in a split second and took with it almost all of her strength. She got down on one knee, and from the reaction of the cadets and SeeDs suddenly rushing towards the exit, she could tell that they had cleared the way. Selphie couldn’t believe it – five minutes ago, half of them couldn’t be arsed, and now, they were flocking to the open entrance.

Seifer stood up and came to offer Selphie a hand. Selphie took it, and they shuffled along to the exit. 

* * *

Selphie took all but three steps out of the entrance before stopping. All around her, she saw Ocean Garden, the place she had come to call home, the home that had welcomed her after her own had refused her, twisted and distorted into a disaster scene, complete with too little number of medics rushing to the aid of too many injured. There was a groaning underneath the human noise, there was a deep groaning, as if the Garden itself was moaning in agony.

It was like somebody had taken the mental image of her home and traumatized it into becoming _this._

She felt Seifer’s hand on her shoulder, squeezing, as if to reassure. A familiar gesture, which reminded her of Squall in a blinding flash. Panic quickly clawed its way up to her throat and started to choke her. Where was Squall? Was he alive? What if he was bleeding out in a corner somewhere? What if he was already dead? What if-

“General Leonhart sent me, are you a junior level?”

Selphie snapped to at the mention of her buzzword. She saw a SeeD, a red-haired girl, who was standing right next to a cadet. Selphie rushed to her side, grabbed her by the arms and turned her.

“You.” She said, “Who are you? What’s your name?”

“B-Brea, sir... Willings...” the girl appeared to be startled by the sudden onslaught of Selphie’s attention.

“You said General Leonhart sent you. Is he alive?”

“Y-yes, sir... sir, my arm...”

“Oh.” Selphie released her grip. "Sorry."

“It’s just a bruise, I think.” Brea said, “My apologies, sir.”

“General Leonhart...”

“Appointed me his aide, sir. Lieutenant General Xu is in the communications center, she’s badly wounded. He sent me to find a medic for her while he went to the bridge.”

“I am a junior.” the cadet said, “Field medic.”

“You're with me.” Brea said. She lingered. When Selphie didn’t get it, she urged, gently, “Coming, sir?”

Selphie snapped out of it.

“Go ahead, I’ll meet you at the elevator.”

“Understood, sir.”

“She’s lively.” Seifer commented.

“His aide...”

“What are you still standing around for?” Seifer said, “Go. Quistis was supposed to be in the Infirmary before meeting me at the cafeteria, I’ll go see if she’s okay.”

“You seem... calm.”

“Would you rather I panicked?”

Selphie smiled and ran to the elevator.


	6. Wreckage

Quistis feels her forehead slide against the stone and leave a wet, slick trail behind. It’s all she can do to cling on. She’s aware that tears are streaming down her cheeks and that her lower lip is trembling; it's aching with every little tremor. She wants to scream, she wants to let it all out, but all she can manage is a whimper and a sob. Her body seems to be made of pain, every nerve ending randomly firing impulses to her brain, drilling into her skull with every move, every breath. She grasps the right arm of her jacket, the cloth smoothly crushed into her palm and is immediately met with a searing pain.

Her right arm’s both broken in several places and her shoulder is dislocated. It’s bent into a shape that it shouldn’t be able to.

She tries to look around, to find something to look at, something else besides the hurt and she sees her right leg. There’s something white coming out of its side, something pale... something solid... something like... no. No... it can’t be. With trembling fingers she touches it, blinding pain, sharp like a knife immediately responds.

Great Hyne, it _is_... it’s bone.

Quistis bites her lower lip and tries to move her leg. It’s possible and less painful than anything else, and she does it. Every time she winces, a hundred little spots on her right cheek remind her of the shards of glass embedded in there. She can still feel the heat from a piece of metal that just barely grazed her eye.

Another piece of metal is still embedded into her thigh; a thin strip of constant discomfort and pricking pain. She can’t maneuver herself enough to get it out, she knows.

The smell of burnt flesh is fresh in her nostrils. It makes her head swim as she tries to simply be in the corner, simply to lie there. The smell makes her eyes involuntarily move to her right hand. Charred black, closed fist, full of agony.

She remembers lifting her hand up to shield herself from the flames. She remembers finishing the word, _Protect,_ as her outstretched hand burned to a crisp and her body broke with the force of the impact...

And then... just the wreckage.

She doesn’t have words to speak, she doesn’t have prayers to voice. She just has the silence, and the wreckage that is around her.

On the wall, the charred SeeD Cross still stands, defiant.

Quistis might laugh if she remembers how it was done. There she is, in a place of healing, broken beyond what she believed would be possible, and lucky... Holy Hyne is she the lucky one... at least she can still draw breath.

Quistis remembers a pleasant chat with Dr. Kodowaki about the new recruits, now seeming a distant memory. Kodowaki had opened the balcony window to smoke. When the cigarette was done, she had tossed it out to the sea, closed the sliding balcony door and then...

The next thing she knew, she was on the corner. Her legs had curled out to the balcony. There was nothing but blackness, the agony, and the sounds of the Infirmary crumbling to fucking pieces. The warm, bright light emanating from the now-broken balcony door only lit up what Quistis didn’t want to see. A chaos that had thrown living ( _now dead, dead, they’re all dead_ ) bodies around like it had everything else, like rag dolls on operating tables, like sandbags in trenches...

_Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!_

Quistis whimpers in hushed resignation, unable to say anything. She curls up as much as she can without hurting too much and cries in silent despair.

In her mind, a thought repeats that she isn’t in the wreckage. She is the wreckage. She is the wreckage. She is the wreckage.

In the distance, she hears footsteps. Somebody’s calling her name. She is sure that she’s imagining it. Nobody will come, and even if they do...

It reminds her of a song, a military rhyme. She sobs at how fitting it is, to die here with this little line in her head...

_And when they come for me..._


	7. Sinking

Squall felt his nausea turn into a downhill slide towards inevitably puking his guts out, but tried to do his best not to let it get to him. He was high up on the elevator shaft and starting to throw up while he was hanging from a ladder ran the risk of his grip slipping. His head was on the verge of spinning and his legs felt like they could give out any second.

_I wasn’t hurt, I just crashed through a railing, nothing major... what the fuck is this, I don’t even..._

He decided that his condition was a problem for another time. Later, if he had a chance to break down. 

* * *

When Squall made it to the door leading to the floor, he breathed a sigh of relief. The doors were open. He simply got up to the ledge and took two steps in before collapsing. His stomach rose, and he retched, feeling bile rise, but not enough to actually throw up.

He saw the inner controls of the doors had been yanked out. Nida had managed to trip the doors. Good.

Clenching his teeth, he pushed the ground and stumbled his way through the long hallway leading to the renovated bridge. His mind dwelled on how insisting on moving the bridge down and forward during the Estharian retrofit job a year ago might not have been such a good idea after all. The hallway seemed endless, and then, it was abruptly cut.

The hallway just ended in a gap that was measured with a tough fall. Not deadly, not by any measure, but tough and impossible to climb out of. Instead of the floor, there was only the edge of a girder jutting out of other end. Squall stood there, trying to keep his stomach down, and figured if he had about ten feet’s worth of a start, he could make the jump, and he had a very long hallway behind him. He backed up, all the while keeping the last three steps he had to leap to take the final jump. When he finally thought he was a good distance to his target, he took a deep breath, spit, and broke into the run. He leapt once, twice and on the third, threw himself across the space, his mind only on his landing.

He fell short. The girder’s length slammed into his side as he missed his mark and his left hand ended up sliding down its cool surface. Squall barely had time to shift his weight before all that was holding him up was his right hand. He quickly reached into one of the gaps at the bottom of the hallway and held himself up.

He dangled there for a moment, trying to find a way to move to the girder completely. Panting, he managed to pull himself up, one hand still clutching at the girder. He pushed the gap his left hand was in, shifted his body around and his fingers came grasping at the other side of the girder. Once both hands were on, he pulled his upper body to it, spun around on his stomach and then, careful not to go off-balance, shifted himself to his knees.

The girder groaned under the weight. Squall quickly got to one knee and then to both feet, and leapt to the hallway as the girder broke the masonry around it and fell down.

Now, to get to Nida, all he had to do was to walk down the hallway.

* * *

Squall found the double doors of the bridge open. He moved forward and his feet got caught up in something. He fell head-first. His body slammed down onto the ground. The next thing he knew, he was sitting up, with a concerned Nida gently shaking him.

“General... hey...”

Bile rose in his stomach, and Squall couldn’t keep it down. He barely turned his head before vomiting full-force. He sat there, dry heaving, every breath pounding in his head. His only clear thought was a repeat of Nida’s earlier comment.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw what he had tripped over. The corpse of the co-pilot, Jan.

With a shaking hand, Squall grabbed Nida by the collar. The cloth felt good in his closed fist.

“What...” he said, trying to draw enough breath to speak, “What is it?”

“General, you...”

“What is it, Nida? What’s the problem? Help me up.”

Nida helped Squall to his feet and he managed to stand. His stomach was worse than it was before. He could barely see straight through the drilling ache in his head.

He stumbled forward as Nida took him to one of the consoles. The thick glass hadn’t broken, but it was riddled with cracks, making it difficult to see.

“This is the status console.” Nida said.

“I know what it is, Nida.”

“See that?” Nida pointed at a gauge, “That’s the power.”

“It’s... we have power loss, we...” he coughed, something was stuck in his throat, “We lost all main power...”

“We lost two auxiliary units too.” Nida said, pointing at two of the three smaller gauges underneath the first, “This one survived. Now, look at this.”

He pointed directly at the center of a spider web crack.

“This is where the display for our engine power would be. Thank Hyne, there is a gauge for that as well.”

Squall blinked a few times.

“We’re floating at 70% capacity!?” he asked Nida.

“No. We’re _moving_ at 70% capacity, which, in about ten minutes, will be 40%. The floaters,” he pointed to a gauge to the right of the first, “, are down to 65%, but they were only at 80% normally, and it has its own aux unit, so...”

“Bottom line this.” Squall said.

“We’re sinking. Slowly, but we’re sinking.” 

* * *

Squall couldn’t feel it sink in for a few moments. The thought finally embedded itself into his mind somewhere down the line and he took a second to comprehend what it meant. The thought then expanded into its connotations, but Squall stopped himself short. One worry at a time. One thousand worries at a time.

“We need to make it to land.” Nida said.

“Galbadia is out of the question.” Squall said, “I am _not_ going there.”

“...it’s probably too far anyway.” Nida sighed, “Our best bet is Esthar.”

“Where are we now?”

“Near Centra.”

“For one thing,” Squall said, “Esthar only has the one port and no equipment to dock or house us if we’re not floating at full capacity. Our only option is Fisherman’s Horizon. Can we get there?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” Nida ran a hand through his hair, “At this rate, we’ll be underwater before we make it halfway, I mean, the engines are slowly burning out the aux power...”

“Then burn them out completely.” Squall said.

“What?”

“Aim the garden at the FH dock as well as you can, then burn out the thruster aux power completely, give us enough speed to make it there.”

Nida considered it.

“That's actually a good idea." he said, "Except, it might not be enough...”

“Whatever. I’m not thinking about that. I can’t afford to. Can you do it?”

“I mean, it’ll take a little security override, but-“

"Don't you have a master key?" Squall asked.

Nida nodded, “This leaves one problem.”

_I just want to sleep._

“Yeah?” Squall asked.

“How are we going to let them know we’re coming? Communications are down, too. I think a missile took out the main relay.”

“I’ll figure something out, just-j-just,” he swallowed hard, “Just get this thing going. That’s a-an order.”

“Yes, sir!” 

* * *

Squall dragged himself, as fast as he could, out of the room and back into his half of the hallway. His feet were refusing to follow a straight line, always straying slightly until he was dragging himself along, shoulder to the wall. There was a sharp, bitter taste at the back of his throat and his head, he was sure, had just split open and burst and was still tender from the splitting open part.

“Squall!”

Squall looked up ahead. Selphie was on the other side of the gap. Something poured out of him, something pure and dense, full of feeling.

_She’s safe..._

Squall’s body slumped against the wall and all went black. 

* * *

Squall woke up to the familiar scent of strawberries and sweat. Was it a not-so-quiet night in or a not-so-quiet night out? He opened his eyes to Selphie’s worried face.

“Squall... thank Hyne..."

"Selphie..."

"Shhh, you’re hurt.”

“I’m glad you’re alright.” he said.

“I am. You’re not.”

“Whatever. Help me stand.”

Selphie helped him sit up, and then, to stand. Squall felt his entire body protest this basic movement. Still, he was standing and it had to count for something.

“We gotta...” he said, “We gotta get down. Don’t know what happened down there, I don’t. I don’t.”

“Squall, you’re not... you...” Selphie sighed through clenched teeth, “You have a headache, yeah?”

“What’s that got to-”

“Headache? Nausea? Did you throw up?”

“Only once.”

Selphie's brow creased.

“Loss of consciousness? Before this, before I found you?”

“Just for a second.”

“You can’t keep running around like this, we-“

“I have to...” something in him refused to acknowledge what he was thinking, “ _Someone_ attacked our home. _My_ home. I’ll rest after I’ve made sure we’re safe, and then I’ll rest when they’ve paid.”

“You’re going to kill yourself at this rate.”

“Then I’ll rest when I’m dead.”

“Don’t say that!”

Green eyes, big, full of sadness and urgent despair. Squall almost closed his eyes... almost.

“I’ll be alright.” He said, softly, “I have you to watch over me.”

Selphie smiled and sighed.

“How did you cross that gap?” Squall asked.

“Float. Which is how we’re gonna get back.”

“How were things on ground level main?”

“Seifer’s handling it.”


	8. Body

Seifer knew that he had lost his mind the moment he had stepped into the infirmary. He would later remember that time as a blank, no memory at all of the sight that he had seen, and part of him would think that acceptable.

He wouldn’t forget the whimpering, the constant, mewling repeat of an incantation, interrupted by sobs. Quiet as a whisper, loud as a bomb.

_And when they come for me, they’ll find me gone. And when they come for me, they’ll find me gone. And when they come for me, they’ll find me gone. And when they come for me, they’ll find me gone._

The body, lying curled up in the scorched debris looked like it could be anything... from six feet away, where he was standing, all Seifer could see was everything he loved, broken; twisted into shapes it shouldn’tve bent towards, burned and only barely alive, constantly repeating the mantra like a broken record.

“Holy Hyne and Vascaroon, Quistis!? _Quistis!”_

Seifer got down to his knees beside her, reached out and touched her shoulder. Quistis shrieked in pain, her voice broke even as she was screaming, she shirked from him, shrunk more into the ball she had curled into and laid there, trembling.

Seifer kept his touch. He wasn’t sure where he could touch her, wasn’t sure where he could touch her that wouldn’t send her screaming in pain. Everywhere he looked, there seemed to be a wound, a laceration, a piece of metal stuck in skin, and through her cover, he could see her arm... great Hyne, her leg... was that...

Seifer turned away, crawled a feet or two, retched and then threw up. It felt to him that he would puke until there was nothing left inside him that could actually process and accept what he had just seen.

Trying to catch his breath, he shouted:

_“Medic! Get a fucking medic in here, now!”_

* * *

Seifer watched, helpless, as the field medic tended to Quistis’ broken body as best as he could. The pale blue glow of the Cura spells came and went at irregular intervals, each one taking away a little more of his hope as the number of times it was cast quickly went up.

He felt useless. Absolutely useless. All he could do was sit there, his mind repeating what he had seen, what he was seeing, and that goddamn military rhyme that was now stuck in his head.


	9. Becalmed

Squall followed Selphie down the elevator shaft and then into the elevator. There, he took a breather. No matter what was happening, no matter what had happened, he had to stand on his own two feet and appear to be strong. He could fall, if the fall was internal and showed nothing to the others.

Selphie took his arm and held him. Her presence, despite everything was happening, despite what had happened, calmed him. Instilled a strange thought in him: that they would make it through this, and everything would be fine.

“Come on, let’s-“

They both saw cadets and the occasional SeeD moving in the same direction.

They found Brea waiting by the elevator. When she saw them, she saluted them both and came over.

“Are you alright, sir?” she asked Squall.

“Better than can be expected.” Squall said, “How’s Xu?”

“A medic is with her right now, sir. He told me that she could easily hold out until we can get her to the Infirmary.”

“Where are they going?” Squall asked, pointing at the few that were walking in the same direction.

“The path to the Infirmary has just been cleared, sir.”

“Let’s go.”

Brea walked by Squall’s side while Selphie had his arm. She wanted to help, but didn't want to presume that she could just take the General's arm. They walked at Squall’s pace, which, Selphie found, was irregular, often with one foot dragging and making him miss the step - a sign that he was tired. She supported him as much as she can, and was aware of the fact that sometimes, he leaned forward before pulling back, as if he was about to fall, but pulled himself back at the last second.

* * *

A crowd had gathered on the edge of the Infirmary. Some, Squall saw, were injured cadets who had makeshift bandages over their wounds, made from their clothes, their ties. His brow creased. Why wasn’t anybody going in?

“Step aside, please.” Brea said, elbowing her way through to clear it for Squall and Selphie. They slid through the crowd and got to the entrance.

Squall just stopped. Selphie took one step further. Brea, by their side, was simply standing there, staring at the scene. The hallway leading into the infirmary had been scorched black, the debris cleaned up by the appointed squad cluttered it along both sides. The double-doors were gone, reduced to bent pieces of metal. Through it, the inside of the Infirmary could be seen and...

Black. Scorched black. Ashes. Nothing but ashes, and the defiant SeeD Cross seemingly floating there, nailed to the wall.

“S-Seifer said...” Selphie stuttered, “Th-tha-that Quistis would be...”

“Move!” Squall brushed past her, followed by Brea. Selphie sprinted after them.

* * *

“Quistis!” Squall shouted, only to encounter two field medics, one, he remembered, was a junior.

“Stand back, sir! Please! Nobody should get in here, stand...”

Brea made a small whimpering sound and cupped both hands over her mouth. Selphie, held back only by Squall’s arm, froze where she stood. Squall could feel his headache becoming just a mild annoyance in the hurricane of thoughts screaming at him. Three medics were already doing what they had been trained to do, and they were right to do so, but the damage... the damage seemed, to him, worse, much worse...

A question came to mind.

“How did she survive?” Squall asked.

“We don’t know, sir.” The junior level medic said, “We couldn’t find anybody else, just... fragments.”

“Protect.”

Squall, Selphie and Brea turned and saw Seifer, hugging his knees on the corner.

“Wh-what?” Selphie could manage.

“Her... right hand is... is...” Seifer swallowed, “But the rest of her body is... isn’t so... the casting hand she... casts with her right hand. I don’t...”

Squall’s stomach lurched and he barely kept his teeth clenched. The stench of burnt flesh was thick in the air. He staggered back, pulling Selphie along, and took two steps before throwing up all that he had left after the bridge. Selphie steadied him as he breathed, his eyes turning in their sockets. Black infested his vision, just for a second. He resurfaced and managed to steady himself.

“Squall, you need to-“ Selphie said, but Squall waved at her, no matter.

“Not now,” Squall said.

“Sir, are you alright..?” Brea asked.

“I’m fine Brea, just... we have to...”

The thin screech of feedback made them all cringe. The speakers, those still functional, came to life with Nida’s voice.

_“Finally, this fucking thing works! Hyne... Now. Everyone, listen to me - hold onto something. All of you. I’m going to give the Garden a big push, and it’s going to shake you all. You have about a minute to get into position. Nida, out.”_

Seifer reached out, and bent over Quistis' ear. He whispered to her, again and again, that he was here and prayed that she had heard.

* * *

Selphie and Brea helped Squall back to the elevator shaft. As he had guessed, nobody else had thought to go there. On their way, they saw couples and trios hugging benches, holding onto the still-intact railing, onto chunks of stone... some had even decided not to hold onto anything, but to simply sit, hands on the floor.

When they got to the elevator, Selphie went in first. Brea opted to stand guard in front of it, in case anybody tried to get in at the last minute. Squall missed his step coming in, and ended up being slowly lowered to the ground by Selphie. She cradled him on her lap, gently holding him.

“I’m... I didn’t do anything... but I’m tired...” Squall said, “But there’s something else... FH bridge, they... they need to know we’re coming...”

“Shhh...” Selphie said, “I’ll take care of everything. And Brea’s watching over us.”

“I... wake me up if I fall asleep. I don’t...”

Nida’s voice

_“Here it comes, people!”_

Selphie held Squall tightly. Squall’s eyes fluttered closed and his body relaxed. As every sound started to come from further and further away, he could hear Selphie’s voice, whispering a prayer.

_Please, Hyne, please..._


	10. Gliding

Ocean Garden groaned, its surfaces vibrating, as the thrusters fired at full-force. The floating fortress slouched forwards at first, the impact of the sudden thrust driving it lower, but it quickly lurched up and began to move forward. The cadets and SeeD within it all held on the best they could; some slipped, but they held on, however they could... or to whomever they could.

In the Infirmary, Seifer kept muttering apologies to a writhing Quistis. He was sorry, he was so sorry that he was hurting her, that he was causing her more pain by holding her to make sure she wouldn't slip. His words were laced with the tears he felt pouring out, and he was sorry, he was so sorry.

In the elevator, Selphie was cradling an unconscious Squall as an ever-watchful Brea stood her ground, despite the sudden shifts in the Garden’s balance. Selphie gently rocked Squall back and forth, cringing at his head wound. She unraveled the tie he had wrapped around his hand and found small glass shards in the cuts, forgotten or missed. She picked them out, one by one, feeling as if each shard removed healed him more.

Brea, with her back turned to both her General and her Lieutenant General, tried to stand her ground, feeling that if she were to fall, she wouldn’t have the strength to stand back up. Her General’s word had given her the mission she was clinging to now and her feverish mind was stuck on her pride. She felt proud that she was now the General’s aide; this, in turn, made her feel ashamed for how inappropriate the feeling was. But she couldn't deny that this was what she was now. That was who she was in that moment and the General’s aide had to stand strong. This thought was the only thing keeping her in one piece.

Nida, manning his post, held onto the giant navigation bar with all he had, trying to keep it straight. It seemed to vibrate from below, which was making it hard for him to keep an exact heading but he had to do it. Everything was riding on him keeping it straight and finding a target in the FH maintenance docks. The broken observation windows allowed for the breeze to come rushing through, and he could barely see straight if he looked up ahead. His last message to Xu had been for her to find a way to announce their arrival.

Xu, held together by a few Cura spells and field dressing, was jerked around like a rag doll by the ground underneath her shifting. She held in her lap an amplified bullhorn; a battery-operated device designed specifically to hold the yield of most of the inner-garden speakers combined. As she held on, the corpses of her fellow SeeDs and cadets were thrown off their chairs and onto the ground, their limbs contorting in ways that made her look away. The medic, still with her, talked to her, and she listened. She watched him talk his pressure away, telling her stories of Dr. Kodowaki and her insistence that magic could only help patch up wounds, not, as she used to say, _magically_ make them disappear. Xu wished they would.

At the end of the big push, Ocean Garden found its balance and started to glide, moving towards Fisherman’s Horizon with the survivors on board.

* * *

Nida’s voice broke through the static of Xu’s little com-caster.

_“Xu, can see the bridge! Better let them know!”_

Xu held out a hand to her medic.

"Help me up." she said.

“You can’t get up yet,” the medic said, “Your wounds, you’ll bleed...”

“Help me bleed, then.” Xu said.


	11. Survivors

_“Fisherman’s Horizon! Our engines and floaters are down! We need your assistance docking the Garden! You are all we’ve got, please, help us!”_

* * *

Squall woke up with a start, his entire body sprang and he stood up, much too fast. Immediately, a sharp, blinding pain entered his head and war drums started pounding on his temples. He took a moment to gather his senses. Selphie’s hand brushed up against his cheek and gently turned his head. He saw the unmistakable look of concern in those bright green eyes – the same look he used to see back when he was chasing the bottle.

“I’m better.” He said, “I’m okay.”

“You’re still hurt.” Selphie said, “But the good news is, we’re almost to Fisherman’s Horizon. That was Xu’s shout-out to them that woke you up.”

“Sir?”

Squall saw Brea standing there, hands tucked behind her back, almost expectant.

“Brea?" Squall raised an eyebrow. It hurt, "You’re still here?”

“Of course, sir.” Brea said, “Wherever you go, I go, and since you were staying here, so did I.”

“She’s a keeper.” Selphie said with a smile.

“Where are we? What did I miss?” Squall asked.

“We’re about to dock with FH Bridge, sir.” Brea said, “Nothing else happened.”

“We need to get to the ramp.” Squall said, “The exit. People will be flocking there... we have to... keep them in. We can’t stay in FH for long. We can’t stay.”

“Why not!?” Selphie asked.

“Because they must never know that we made it." Squall said, rubbing his temples, "It must be as if there were no survivors – we can’t risk somebody carrying the news of our survival sooner than we have time to reach Esthar. Brea.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Tell whoever you see that they will not be given permission to disembark. This isn't a shore leave. If anyone has any problems with that, tell them to come see me about it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, and, Brea?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, sir.”

Brea sprinted away. Squall kept rubbing his temples. The headache was still there. Sleeping had given him a bit of energy, but it also reminded him that it was too little... more rest. He needed more rest, except it wasn’t an option now.

“We need to get to the dock exit.” Squall said, “I need to get off as soon as possible.”

“Squall, hey,” Selphie cupped his cheeks with both hands and forced him to look her in the eye, “Slow down. You’re going a thousand miles a minute.”

“I can’t.” Squall said, “Not yet.”

Selphie couldn’t help but smile bitterly.

“You’ve got that look again.” Selphie said, “I’ll bite. Who are you gonna call?”

“My father.”

Selphie didn’t say anything. She simply followed Squall to the dock exit. 

* * *

Squall and Selphie went through the continuous scenery of devastation and witnessed the survivors waiting, some eagerly, some wearily, and some simply because they had nothing else, for them to make it to the dock, to connect with land, have some grounding. Those cradling their injured loved ones were reciting familiar words from their private languages, whispering assurances without believing a word of it.

Selphie followed Squall up the elevator shaft and onto the second floor. The doors, mercifully, had been left open, and they slid right in. Once they were in the hallway to the classrooms, they encountered cadets and SeeDs who had simply stayed where they were because they hadn’t known what else to do. Squall stopped to get their designated specialties, sent the field medics down, ordered the rest to stay put.

The dock exit was simply the changed balcony – its middle section stood lower than the sides, and it had a four-step climb to where the ramp to the Fisherman’s Horizon docks would fit. From where they were standing, they could see the ramp, a piece of metal extending from the rest of the immense docking station like an oustretched hand, moving towards them.

Selphie interlocked her fingers with Squall’s. He gently squeezed her hand, and told her more than he could with words. She saw him standing next to her, with all his strength, desperately trying not to fall, and she thought of Quistis.

“Seifer was rather helpful.” Selphie said.

“Was he?”

“He kept a level head. Mostly.”

Selphie felt Squall’s grip grow tighter, rougher.

“I won’t let it stand.” He said, “I won’t have it. They’ll pay for this.”

* * *

The survivors waited for a few moments before turning away and shuffling their feet. Their forced march back to the garden was just a source of defeat, Brea noted, but to her surprise, nobody had had the presence of mind or strength to argue with her. Maybe, she reasoned, they just didn't want to deal with a ticked off Squall Leonhart if they tried to disobey. Their home was a wreck, Brea saw, and so were they.

* * *

When Brea joined Selphie and Squall, they marched in a single file down the ramp. Squall moved them through the docks, through the smell of rust, metal, salt water and fish, towards the scent of cheap liquor and Triple Triad. Flanked on both sides with places that were dead this time of day, they stopped at a payphone. Squall went into the booth while Brea and Selphie stood on the side.

A moment’s silence prompted Selphie to speak.

“He won’t admit it, but he sometimes needs help, like all of us do.” she said.

“Sir?”

“Thank you, Brea.” Selphie said, “For sticking with him. Especially when you could have gone either way.”

“Either way, sir?”

“You could’ve said, fuck it, what does the chain of command mean at a time like this? But you chose to stick to it.”

“Permission to speak frankly, sir?”

“Granted.”

“It was the only thing that kept me from losing my mind. I’m Trabian. I was there during the Atrocity. I lost three close friends that day.”

Selphie bit her tongue.

“Being here, today felt like it was happening all over again.” Brea said, “And it would have locked me out of everything. But then... he came. He moved me through it all, gave me something to do. Took away my helplessness. That’s why I’m sticking with him. I don't back down from my duty, and I intend to be here for as long as he wants me.”

* * *

Squall slid his card into the phone’s slot and dialed the number. His hands were starting to shake. He leaned against the booth and tried to support himself. He wasn’t going to last very long. Being halfway out of the woods was getting to him, the incident was finally going to break him down.

This time, he didn’t think anybody would catch him.

_“Esthar Presidential Palace, this is El speaki-“_

“This is General Leonhart, clearance Loire Beta Six. Secure the line and patch me through to the president.”

_“Y-yes, sir! Er, just a moment...”_

Squall tapped on the phone with shaking fingers. Twenty seconds for the line to be secured. Another fifteen for it to be routed to the secure phone, the red one on Laguna’s desk. Two rings, three seconds each and...

“ _Hello? Squall?”_

Squall took a deep breath.

“Father...”

_“...what happened? What happened?”_

“We were attacked. We need help. How soon can you send medics with proper equipment, technicians to help get the garden to at least a manageable state?”

_“Where are you?”_

“Fisherman’s Horizon. We can’t stay for long. I don’t want anyone to know we made it.”

A moment's pause.

_“Kiros says they can be there within the hour.”_

“I need another favor.”

_“Forget favors, just ask, Squall. If I can, I will.”_

“We need to move and conceal the Garden. It must be as if the Garden was destroyed.”

_“After the technicians take care of whatever problems you have for the time being, we can move it to Tear’s Point. Our cloaking should shield the Garden, and since nobody hardly ever goes there, you’d be away from prying eyes.”_

“Quistis is badly injured... putting it fucking mildly. She needs you. I need you.”

_“Anything you need.”_

“Thank you...” Squall could feel all energy draining from his limbs, “One last thing. If anyone asks, and somebody will, whatever they’ll tell you, please make it like it’s news to you. You can’t know what happened, outside of what they’ll say.”

 _“I wrote the chapter on diplomacy in your_ Biblis Tactica, _son.”_

“Yeah, I know... thank you.”

_“Who did this?”_

“Not here. Later.”

_“Then I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”_

“See you.”

Squall hung up. He got out of the booth, dragging his feet, and found Selphie and Brea waiting for him. He smiled. His next step took everything he had. He fell to his knees, and trying to stay in one piece, fell to his side and everything went black.

One thought flared in the pitch-black.

_I’m done._


	12. Veterans

Squall opened his eyes to an unfamiliar ceiling, and the smell of linoleum and antiseptic. His head felt heavy, and he could feel bandages around his forehead. He tried to sit up. his entire body seemed to be restrained with invisible straps and his head seemed to be lagging a few inches behind.

“Thank Hyne.”

Squall turned to see Selphie sitting in an armchair next to his bed. She was in her uniform, and her hair was a mess. The dark circles under her eyes told him that she hadn’t seen a good night’s sleep in a while.

“Hello.” Selphie said, rubbing her eyes, “Welcome back, lover.”

“How long was I out?”

“Two days now. You faded in and out a lot, but you probably don’t remember...” She said, yawning, “You’re in Esthar General. We all are.”

“What...” getting to his feet didn’t appear to be an option, so he settled, “What happened?”

“The Garden’s anchored to Tear’s Point. I think they’re still handling repairs, I haven’t heard anything since they pulled us in. In the mean, most of the cadets and SeeDs who aren’t injured are in hotels, standing by.”

“Quistis? How is Quistis?”

“She’s in ICU. She’ll live, so they say but recovery... that’s a whole different story, and I’m not sure I like the ending. It’s bad, Squall.”

“I wish...”

“None of that, darling.”

“You look tired.” he said.

“Yeah, no shit.” Selphie managed a weak smile, “Between waiting for your lazy ass to wake up and co-managing the situation with Brea, I’m running mostly on oil-slick Estharian coffee, which, I’ll have you know, has one fucked up comedown.”

“Brea..?”

“Your appointed instrument.” Selphie said, “She’s a good improviser. She handled most of it, I just did the official work.”

“Most random choice I ever made.” Squall said, “A shot in the dark.”

“That’ll get you far.”

“Maybe."

Selphie sighed.

“Word is, or so she tells me, they are all waiting for you to come out. You know, play the General. Say something, do something.”

Squall frowned. He had a few ideas as to what he could do, but all of them ended in the inevitable, in what he _must_ do. He threw off the covers and got to his feet. Shaky, unstable, but balance could be found. He could walk, if only with Selphie’s support.

“Where to?” Selphie asked.

“Is my uniform here?”

“Yeah... well, I’ve been sitting on it, but, it’s here.” 

* * *

Squall slowly put on his uniform. Every piece of clothing that he pulled on, every layer of fabric revived more of the identity he was trying to reach – that of General Leonhart. Cold, calculated, master tactician, veteran of the Second Sorceress War. Leader of SeeD, specialist mercenaries, child soldiers picked up and trained to defeat the sorceress, any sorceress.

When he finished getting dressed, Selphie smiled.

“Y’know... that uniform’s very flattering.” she said.

“You can talk.”

“Oh come on. I’m disgusting right now.”

“Freshen up a bit, then.”

“Where’re we going?”

“To visit Quistis, first. After that, we’ll visit the veterans.”

Selphie raised an eyebrow.

“Quistis and Xu are the only-“

“Not anymore.”

Squall ran his hand through Selphie’s hair, and caressed her cheek. Selphie was almost afraid – the expression on his face...

“This was an act of war." Squall said, “And I wish it hadn’t come to this, but it has. I had my part in all this.”

Selphie took his hand and squeezed assuredly.

“It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’tve known.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But there’s one thing I do know for certain, we're over the line. And the people in this hospital, our people, are all veterans now.”

Selphie took Squall’s arm, appearances be damned.

“Let’s go, then, General.” She said.

Squall let her lead him.


	13. Epilogue (Resorting to War.)

There was only the muffled hissing sound of her breathing and the regular bleeping of the machines hooked up to her bed. Her form, healing, but still fragile and now asleep, looked so small and vulnerable, so unlike her. So unlike the woman he used to know.

Now, she was half Quistis and half machine.

Her right arm was encased in a plastician cast, its faint purplish glow pulsing, indicating that it was healing. Her right leg, now an assortment of flesh and thin, metal strips, looks too broken to heal.

Silently watching from behind the glass separating the hallway from her ICU chamber, Squall couldn’t help but feel at a loss of what to do.

He stuck his hands into his pockets and sighed. It had been four days since he had woken up to Selphie watching over him, and he had spent most of it in the Central Hospital, making rounds to wounded cadets, assuring those grieving the loss of their loved ones, visiting Xu... and every day, he ended his rounds with this silent vigil by Quistis' room.

The doctors’ and trauma surgeons' assurances that she would heal rang hollow to him every time he came to see her. The outlook was good, they had said, she was healing well. But every time Squall thought about this fact, he couldn’t help but view it in light of all the things they had told him Quistis would never do again. 

She would never be able to walk without a crutch or a cane. Her right hand, still that black, closed fist, was unlikely to open again and it would most likely bring psycho-somatic pain with it. If it ever did let her fingers loose, she wouldn’t be able to use them at all. She wasn’t likely to have full feeling in her right arm again. There’d be some scarring on her face, mostly on her cheeks. A shard of glass, from her glasses, had been grazed her left eye, and she would lose some of her sight.

_I will make her pay. For everything. For you. I’ll make her pay for what she’s done to you._

Someone came to his side and crossed his arms. Squall took a sideways glance. It was Seifer, standing there in his SeeD uniform. On the other days, Squall had left when he had come. It had almost been as if he had passed the duty of watching over Quistis to him, but his uniform, what he had earned through his loss stayed him then.

“The uniform suits you well.” Squall said.

“Quistis always said it was my color.”

“Is it yours?”

“Selphie found it in Quistis' locker. My field test would have been three days from now.”

“You’ve earned it.” Squall said.

“I wish... I didn’t. Not with this price. It’s not worth it. This isn’t worth it.”

“You didn’t earn it through her loss.” Squall said, “That’s not why you’re SeeD.”

“And why am I SeeD, then?”

Squall sighed.

“Whatever we have between us, whatever our history, all that is irrelevant now. Beyond all of that, I have to recognize and so respect one thing: that you genuinely care for Quistis.”

“I love her.”

“I know.” Squall said, “As do I. Through that, I can see who you can be, rather than who you are for me now.”

Seifer didn’t quite know what to say. A thought occurred to him.

“Do you know who did this to us..? To her?” he asked.

Squall sighed and smiled.

“Who else..?”

“Rinoa.” Seifer snarled.

Squall shook his head.

“I guess I just didn’t want to believe she was so far gone that she would actually go through with something like this.”

“She would.”

“Yeah,” Squall said, looking at Seifer, “She would. And I should’ve known.”

“Not your fault.”

“Isn’t it?”

Seifer smiled wryly.

“Thing about Rinoa,” Seifer said, “You never know what she’ll do. She’s impulsive, and none of her decisions involve anything but herself. What she wants, what she thinks she needs... I know you two were... deep, but I don't think you could ever fucking begin to make her do anything. Sorry.”

“Whatever.”

Seifer almost smiled. The sight of the woman he loved lying in healing stasis stopped him.

“So...” he said, “What does the great General Leonhart have in mind for our next move?”

Squall saw Seifer's anger clear in his eyes. Bloodlust, desire for vengeance, hatred; a profound need to exact bloody vengeance, to inflict violence.

Squall was sure that if he wasn’t so numb, he’d feel the same things.

"Well?" Seifer asked.

“The only thing he’s good for.” Squall said, “Resorting to war.”


End file.
